Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Sep;114(3):319-324.
doi: 10.1007/s12185-021-03167-x. Epub 2021 Jun 6.

Incidence of venous thromboembolism in patients with solid cancers in Japan: retrospective study of 2735 patients

Taku Nose  1 , Yoshinori Imamura  2 , Shinya Ohata  1 , Shiro Kimbara  1 , Yoshiharu Miyata  1 , Yasuko Hyogo  1 , Yoshimi Fujishima  1 , Yohei Funakoshi  1 , Masanori Toyoda  1 , Naomi Kiyota  1   3 , Hironobu Minami  1   3
Affiliations

Incidence of venous thromboembolism in patients with solid cancers in Japan: retrospective study of 2735 patients

Taku Nose et al. Int J Hematol. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

Background: The incidence of cancer-associated venous thromboembolism (CA-VTE) in Japan has not been fully investigated.

Methods and results: Clinicopathological information from patients with solid malignancies who first visited our department between November 2011 and March 2018 were retrospectively reviewed from medical records. The primary outcome was incidence of CA-VTE, defined as deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) and/or pulmonary embolism (PE). On median follow-up of 187 days, 91 of 2735 patients (3.3%) developed CA-VTE during their clinical course, giving an incidence rate of 40.7 per 1000 person-years. Of the 91 patients, 75 (82%) were diagnosed with DVT alone, 6 (7%) with PE alone, and 10 (11%) with both DVT and PE. CA-VTE was most frequent in non-small cell lung cancer (10.8%), followed by cancer of unknown origin (5.8%). Forty-four patients (48%) had one or more symptoms at the initial diagnosis of VTE. Five patients (6%) had a normal D-dimer level (≤ 1.0 µg/mL); of these, 2 were asymptomatic.

Conclusions: In this retrospective study, the incidence of CA-VTE in Japanese patients with cancer was equivalent to that in Western populations. Approximately half of CA-VTE patients were asymptomatic and 6% had normal D-dimer levels, indicating the need for closer attention to occult CA-VTE.

Keywords: Cancer-associated venous thromboembolism; Incidence; Solid malignancy; Venous thromboembolism.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Khorana AA, Francis CW, Culakova E, Kuderer NM, Lyman GH. Thromboembolism is a leading cause of death in cancer patients receiving outpatient chemotherapy. J Thromb Haemost. 2007;5:632–4. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-7836.2007.02374.x . - DOI - PubMed
    1. Khorana AA, Kuderer NM, Culakova E, Lyman GH, Francis CW. Development and validation of a predictive model for chemotherapy-associated thrombosis. Blood. 2008;111:4902–7. https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2007-10-116327 . - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Mandalà M, Barni S, Prins M, Labianca R, Tondini C, Russo L, et al. Acquired and inherited risk factors for developing venous thromboembolism in cancer patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy: a prospective trial. Ann Oncol Off J Eur Soc Med Oncol. 2010;21:871–6. https://doi.org/10.1093/annonc/mdp354 . - DOI
    1. Gary T, Belaj K, Steidl K, Pichler M, Eisner F, Stöger H, et al. Asymptomatic deep vein thrombosis and superficial vein thrombosis in ambulatory cancer patients: impact on short-term survival. Br J Cancer. 2012;107:1244–8. https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.2012.401 . - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Khorana AA, Soff GA, Kakkar AK, Vadhan-Raj S, Riess H, Wun T, et al. Rivaroxaban for thromboprophylaxis in high-risk ambulatory patients with cancer. N Engl J Med. 2019;380:720–8. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1814630 . - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources